Bill Lear

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Bill Lear
Bill Lear
Born	26 June 1902
Died	14 May 1978
Nationality	American
Known for	Lear Jet

William (Bill) Powell Lear (26 June 1902 – 14 May 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets. He also developed the 8-track cartridge, an audio tape system which was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s.

[edit] Early life

Lear was born in Hannibal, Missouri as an only child. He later moved with his family to Chicago, where he attended school up until the eighth grade. He enlisted in the United States Navy during World War I, serving as a radio operator. Lear had no formal education past the eighth grade other than the courses which he took in the Navy.

[edit] Inventor

In the 1920s, Lear and a partner, Elmer Wavering, invented the first practical car radio, eventually selling their patents to Paul Galvin of the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (which would later become Motorola). In 1930, Lear used his profits from the sale of his car radio patents to found Lear Developments, a company specializing in aerospace instruments and electronics. Lear developed radio direction finders, autopilots, and the first fully automatic aircraft landing system. Lear also developed and marketed a line of panel-mounted radios for General Aviation. His "LearAvian" series of portable radios, which incorporated radio direction finder circuits as well as broadcast band coverage, were especially popular.

Lear married his second wife Madeline Murphy in October 1926. Their son, Bill Lear Jr. was born on May 24, 1928. After his divorce with Madeline, Lear married Margaret Radel, but it didn't last long. In 1941, Lear married his fourth wife Moya Marie Olsen daughter of Vaudeville comedian John "Ole" Olsen.^[1] Bill and Moya Lear would have four children together: John Olsen Lear was born in 1942, Shanda in 1944, David in 1948 and Tina in 1954.

Lear changed the name of Lear Developments to Lear, Incorporated and in 1949 opened a manufacturing facility in Santa Monica, California.

In 1960, Lear moved to Switzerland and founded the Swiss American Aviation Company. In 1962 he sold Lear Incorporated to the Siegler Corporation after failing to convince its board to go into the aircraft manufacturing business. That company thereafter was known as Lear Siegler. Bill Lear next moved to Wichita, Kansas to manufacture the Lear Jet. On 7 October 1963, Lear Jet started test flights on the Learjet 23, the first mass produced business jet.

[edit] Innovations

Lear developed the Lear Jet Stereo 8 cartridge in 1964. This was an eight track variation of the 4-Track Stereo-Pak tape cartridge, marketed by Earl "Madman" Muntz in California in 1962, itself a version of a 3-track system, Fidelipac. The 8-track was a commercial success that had good audio quality and was easily adapted to vehicle and home use.^[2] It was a solution to the need for a convenient music source for his new business jets. The consumer version of players for these tapes first appeared in September 1965 in 1966 model Ford automobiles with RCA and Lear offering the first pre-recorded Stereo 8 Music Cartridges.

The successful Canadair Regional Jet is largely based on Lear's design for the LearStar 600, which Canadair bought and turned into the Canadair CL-600 Challenger business jet. Lear Jet was acquired in 1990 by Bombardier Aerospace.

In 1968, Lear also started work on a closed circuit steam turbine to power cars and buses, and built a transit bus and sedan using this turbine system.

One of Lear's most innovative projects was his last—a revolutionary airplane called the Lear Fan. The fuselage of this plane was made of lightweight composite materials instead of the standard aluminum material. It also featured an innovative "pusher" design, in which two aircraft engines powered a single spinning propeller blade that faced the rear of the aircraft.

The Lear Fan, though many years in development, was ultimately never completed. He begged his wife, Moya Lear, to finish it, and with the help of investors, she attempted to do so. But the plane failed to obtain FAA certification, and never made it into production. This was not due to FAA concern about its use of innovative materials; rather, because of concerns that even with two engines, the gear mechanism that powered the single propeller might fail. If it did, the plane would crash.

[edit] Death

The 75-year-old Lear died of leukemia on 14 May 1978. At the time of his death, Lear's current project was the Model 2100 Learfan, a seven-passenger plane whose tail mounted propeller was powered by two turboprop engines.

Bill Lear had a total of seven children, born from 1925 to 1954: Lear and his first wife Ethel Peterson Lear: Mary Louise born January 1925
Lear and his second wife Madeline Murphy Lear: William Lear Jr. born May 1928 and Patti born on Bills birthday June 26th 1929
Lear was married to Margret Radell for a very short time, no children.

Bill Lear and his fourth wife, Moya, had four children: John, Shanda, David and Tina.

[edit] Popular culture

• Though he could be difficult to work for, William Lear reportedly had a good sense of humor. He named his daughter Shanda ("chandelier").
• Lear played a bit part as a pilot in the 1967 film In Like Flint.

[edit] Learisms

• On aeronautics, "If it looks good, it will fly good."
• On management, "If you put half of the money, you get to make half of the decisions."
• On electronics, "There's only one thing worse than an intermittent, that's an intermittent intermittent."

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

• MIT Inventor of the week
• Biography from The National Aviation Hall of Fame